1. A digital optical tape archival storage system comprising:
a digital optical tape recorder configured to simultaneously write data and two or more guide tracks onto a digital optical tape recording medium; and
a digital optical taper reader comprising:
a camera comprising an array of detectors to capture a two-dimensional image of the digital optical tape recording medium, and
an image processor to extract the data from the two-dimensional image,
wherein the camera captures the two-dimensional image of the digital optical tape recording medium without one-to-one alignment of individual data bits recorded on the digital optical tape recording medium to individual detectors within the camera.
2. The digital optical tape archival storage system of claim 1, wherein
the camera is configured to oversample the data such that a linear density of picture elements in the two-dimensional image captured by the camera is at least double a linear density of bits in the data recorded on the digital optical tape recording medium.
3. The digital optical tape archival storage system of claim 1, wherein
the guide tracks include fiduciary markers at periodic intervals along a length of the digital optical tape recording medium, and
the image processor is configured to extract the data from the two-dimensional image based, at least in part, on locations of the fiduciary markers within the two-dimensional image.
4. The digital optical tape archival storage system of claim 1, wherein the digital optical tape recorder further comprises:
a spatial light modulator comprising a linear array of individually controllable elements to write a corresponding line of data bits onto the digital optical tape recording medium;
a guide track generator to generate the two or more guide tracks; and
a data combiner to combine data to be stored and the guide tracks such that each line of data bits written on the digital optical tape recording medium includes a block of data and a corresponding portion of each of the two or more guide tracks.
5. A digital optical tape recorder comprising:
a spatial light modulator comprising a linear array of individually controllable elements to write a corresponding line of data bits onto the digital optical tape recording medium;
a guide track generator to generate the two or more guide tracks; and
a data combiner to combine data to be stored and the guide tracks such that each line of data bits written on the digital optical tape recording medium includes a block of data and a corresponding portion of each of the two or more guide tracks.
6. The digital optical tape recorder of claim 5, wherein
the guide tracks include fiduciary markers at periodic intervals along a length of the digital optical tape recording medium.
7. The digital optical tape recorder of claim 5, wherein
the two or more guide tracks are configured to provide a visual indication of an intended direction of travel of the digital optical tape recording medium.
8. The digital optical tape recorder of claim 5, wherein the two or more guide tracks are configured to provide a visual indication of a top edge and a bottom edge of the digital optical tape recording medium.
9. A method for archival data storage on a digital optical tape recording media, comprising:
generating two or more guide tracks;
combining data to be stored and the two or more guide tracks such that each line of data bits to be written on the digital optical tape recording medium includes a block of data and a corresponding portion of each of the two or more guide tracks; and
writing each line of data bits onto the digital optical tape recording medium by modulating a light beam using a spatial light modulator having a corresponding linear array of individually controllable elements.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein
the guide tracks include fiduciary markers at periodic intervals along a length of the digital optical tape recording medium.
11. The method of claim 9, wherein
the two or more guide tracks are configured to provide a visual indication of an intended direction of travel of the digital optical tape recording medium.
12. The method of claim 9, wherein the two or more guide tracks are configured to provide a visual indication of a top edge and a bottom edge of the digital optical tape recording medium.
13. A digital optical taper reader comprising:
a camera comprising an array of detectors to capture a two-dimensional image of a digital optical tape recording medium, and
an image processor to extract the data from the two-dimensional image,
wherein the camera captures the two-dimensional image of the digital optical tape recording medium without one-to-one alignment of individual data bits recorded on the digital optical tape recording medium to individual detectors within the camera.
14. The digital optical taper reader of claim 13, wherein
the camera is configured to oversample the data such that a linear density of picture elements in the two-dimensional image captured by the camera is at least double a linear density of bits in the data recorded on the digital optical tape recording medium.
15. The digital optical taper reader of claim 13, wherein
the image processor is configured to extract the data from the two-dimensional image based, at least in part, on locations of fiduciary markers within the two-dimensional image.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method for communications device operations, the method comprising:
selecting a portion of a media content stream;
processing the portion to produce a processed portion;
generating a signature from the processed portion;
transmitting the signature; and
transmitting the media content stream.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the portion comprises scaling the portion.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the portion comprises reducing a bit-depth of the portion, reducing a color depth of the portion, reducing a dimension of the portion, compressing the portion, or combinations thereof.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a signature comprises providing the processed portion to a transformation function.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the transformation function comprises a wavelet filterbank decomposition function, a singular value decomposition function, a discrete cosine transform function, or combinations thereof.
6. The method of claim 4, wherein the transformation function produces an output, and wherein the signature comprises a portion of the output.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the signature comprises a statistically significant portion of the output.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting, the processing, the generating, and the transmitting the signature are performed in response to receiving an instruction to generate a signature.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting, the processing, the generating, and the transmitting the signature are performed at specified intervals.
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising an indication of a location of the portion in the media content stream.
11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
receiving a quality measure of a received version of the media content stream, wherein the quality measure is generated in accordance with the signature and the received version of the media content stream; and
adjusting the media content stream based on the quality measure.
12. A communications device comprising:
a portion selector configured to select a portion of a media content stream;
a signature unit coupled to the portion selector, the signature unit configured to process the portion and to generate a signature from the processed portion; and
a transmitter coupled to the signature unit, the transmitter configured to transmit the signature and the media content stream.
13. The communications device of claim 12, wherein the portion selector is further configured to produce an indication of a location of the portion in the media content stream.
14. The communications device of claim 12, wherein the signature unit processes the portion by scaling, reducing a bit-depth of the portion, reducing a color depth of the portion, reducing a dimension of the portion, compressing the portion, or combinations thereof.
15. The communications device of claim 12, wherein the signature unit generates the signature by applying a transformation unit to the processed portion.
16. The communications device of claim 15, wherein the transformation unit comprises a wavelet filterbank decomposition function, a singular value decomposition function, a discrete cosine transform function, or combinations thereof.
17. The communications device of claim 16, wherein the signature unit selects a statistically significant portion of an output of the transformation unit as the signature.
18. The communications device of claim 12, further comprising a quality processor configured to responsively respond to an instruction or at a specified time to initiate a generation of a signature and a transmission of the generated signature.
19. The communications device of claim 12, further comprising:
a receiver configured to receive a quality report; and
a quality processor configured to adjust the media content stream in accordance with the quality report.
20. A method of communications device operations, the method comprising:
receiving a second media content stream;
receiving a first signature, wherein the first signature is based on a first portion of a first media content stream;
selecting a second portion of the second media content stream, wherein the second portion corresponds to the first portion of the first media content stream;
processing the second portion to produce a processed second portion;
generating a second signature from the processed second portion; and
generating a quality report from the first signature and the second signature.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein processing the second portion comprises processing the second portion using a technique used to process the first portion.
22. The method of claim 20, wherein generating a quality report comprises:
determining a difference between the first signature and the second signature; and
generating an indicator in accordance with the difference.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein generating an indicator comprises providing the difference to a classification function.
24. The method of claim 23, wherein the classification function comprises a Kernel Gaussian Mixture model, Canonical Correlation Analysis model, or a combination thereof.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein the classification function is trained a priori and results of the training is stored for subsequent use in classifying the difference.
26. A communications device comprising:
a receiver configured to receive a second media stream and a first signature, wherein the first signature is based on a first portion of a first media content stream;
a portion selector coupled to the receiver, the portion selector configured to select a second portion of the second media stream, wherein the second portion corresponds to the first portion of the first media content stream;
a signature unit coupled to the portion selector, the signature unit configured to process the second portion and to generate a second signature from the processed second portion; and
a quality generator coupled to the signature unit, the quality generator configured to generate a quality report based on the first signature and the second signature.
27. The communications device of claim 26, wherein the quality generator is configured to determine a difference between the first signature and the second signature and to generate an indicator in accordance with the difference.
28. The communications device of claim 27, wherein the quality generator generates the indicator by providing the difference to a classification function.
29. The communications device of claim 28, wherein the classification function comprises a Kernel Gaussian Mixture model, Canonical Correlation Analysis model, or a combination thereof.
30. The communications device of claim 29, wherein the classification function makes use of training data stored in a memory of the communications device.